By Lethal Force: An Away From Keyboard Romantic Suspense Standalone Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Patricia D. Eddy

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Just for you

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  From Patricia

  About the Author

  Also by Patricia D. Eddy

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  Prologue

  Twenty Years Ago

  Joey

  That last Cosmo was a mistake. As I follow Uma and Belle into our third bar of the night, my stomach lurches. After today, I’m never drinking again.

  “Our table’s in the back,” Uma shouts over Queen blasting from the sound system. “We have the karaoke stage from seven to eight.”

  “I am not singing,” I protest. “I love you, babe, but—” I belch, tasting bile, and groan, “—karaoke is the one line I will never cross.”

  The three of us perch on stools around the high-top table, and Uma checks her watch. “Betty and Pilar should be here soon, and they’ll drag your pre-med ass up there.”

  “They’ll fail.” A server swings by with water, and I down half the glass, praying it’ll be enough to stop me from hurling all over my “I’m with the bride” t-shirt. “I’ll do anything for you. But I won’t do that.” My voice warbles in a pitiful attempt at mimicking MeatLoaf’s iconic song, and my two best friends applaud as I take a half bow and barely manage not to fall off my stool.

  And that’s when I see him.

  For a few seconds, I’m stone cold sober. Staring at the profile of the man who slipped a ring on my finger six months ago and promised me as soon as I finished med school, we’d get married.

  Except…he’s supposed to be halfway around the world. Deployed with the Marine Corps. Instead, he’s sitting thirty feet away, staring into his beer, while a scantily clad bar-bunny presses her ass against his hip.

  “Oh, hell no,” I say as I bounce off the stool and weave my way through the crowds. Uma calls my name, but I’m too angry. Too focused on Ford to respond to her.

  As I reach the little floozie sucking a neon green drink through a bright pink straw, I narrow my eyes, and she makes a little o with her perfectly painted lips. Ford doesn’t notice her scampering away, but when I clear my throat and say his name, he flinches, his shoulders slumping further before he slowly turns to face me.

  “Want to tell me what my fiancé is doing in San Diego? In a bar? With…that? I jerk my head towards the bar-bunny, who’s now grinding her hips against another Marine in dress whites.

  He doesn’t speak for several long seconds, his mouth slack, defeat marring his features.

  “Well?”

  “I…we…it’s a three-day furlough. Just enough time to—”

  “To cheat on me?”

  Ford pushes his glass away and reaches for me. “Joey—”

  “Don’t ‘Joey’ me. You’re in a bar, in our home town, and you didn’t call the woman you’re supposed to marry. Tell me what else I’m supposed to think?” My voice cracks as I try to make myself heard over the music, and I slap my hand over my mouth as my stomach lurches again. Shit. I’m going to be sick. Everything I thought I knew… I can’t do this now. Can’t watch him try to come up with excuses that’ll make this all okay. It’ll never be okay.

  “I thought you were one of the good ones.” I pull and twist until the ring pops off my finger, then slam it down on the bar next to his beer. “Go fuck yourself, Ford.”

  Whirling, I almost go down, but Uma and Belle appear behind me, each taking an arm. “Ford?” Uma asks as her gaze bounces between me and my now-former fiancé.

  “I have to get out of here,” I say, my voice choked with the tears I won’t let fall in front of him. Pushing out of my best friends’ arms, I stumble back to the table, grab my purse, and make my way to the door.

  Bursting into the cool evening air, I start to run for Market Street. I can catch a cab there to take me home, and all I want right now is to throw up and cry.

  “Joey!” Ford’s voice behind me propels my feet faster, but I can’t see much through the tears welling in my eyes. “Joey, wait, please!”

  He catches up to me on the corner, steps in front of me, and wraps me in his arms. The tender gesture shatters me, and I dissolve into hoarse, choking sobs. “You…bastard. I hate you.”

  “Call me any name you want, buttercup. I deserve them all. But,” he dips his head so his lips are close to my ear, “I swear on my life I didn’t cheat on you. I would never. You’re…you’re it for me.”

  As a tear lands on my bare shoulder, I peer up at him. In the two years we’ve been together, I’ve never seen him so…unsure. “Then why—?”

  “Can we go somewhere? Your place? Mine? Anywhere you want. Just to talk?” He presses my ring into my palm, and a fresh wave of tears tumbles down my cheeks. “Please, baby. I can’t lose you. I love you. I’d die before I’d cheat on you.”

  “Lisa’s at my apartment. With her boyfriend.” I sniffle and swipe my hands over my cheeks. “I told her I wouldn’t be back tonight.”

  “Then my place. Please?” Emotion thickens his tone, and he feels so good, smells so good, and he’s so earnest…I give in.

  “Okay. But you’re paying for my cab when you’re done explaining.”

  Ford nods, drapes his arm around my shoulder, and steers me down the sidewalk. His tiny studio is only a few blocks from here, and we walk, not saying a word, as my mind races. He’s the most honest man I’ve ever met. I’m pretty sure there’s a picture of him next to the dictionary definition of boy scout. So if he says he didn’t cheat, he didn’t.

  But that doesn’t let him off the hook.

  As soon as he closes his apartment door, he heads for the fridge for two bottles of water. “Want one?”

  “I want an explanation.” But, I’m still a little tipsy, so I take the water and rest my back against the door.

  “I don’t know…fuck. They warned us about this.” He stalks over to his little window. The view isn’t anything—just a little courtyard with a decrepit fountain, but he’s fixated on it like it’s a lifeline. “The first time you kill someone. It’s…I can’t…you don’t deserve this darkness.”

  Ford braces his forearm on the upper windowsill. He barely fits in this apartment. Six-foot-ten, not bulky, but hard as a rock, he’s always been my granite teddy bear. The nicest, sweetest man in the entire world. But now, he’s so distant. I approach carefully, and when I rest my hand on his back, he stiffens. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Touch you? Ford? We’re…I love yo
u.”

  “I don’t deserve you. Your love. Not after what I’ve done.”

  My hackles go up, and I back off a couple of steps towards the door. “You said you didn’t cheat—”

  “I didn’t!” He whirls, and I see the truth in his eyes. He didn’t. But he didn’t just kill one person. He killed a lot of them. “You went to war, Marine. You had to know it’d be bad.”

  “Not this bad. They gave us the furlough so we could get our heads on straight. Hell, my CO told me to find you and bury all this balls-deep—fuck. I’m sorry, baby.”

  “I like you balls-deep in me.”

  This makes him laugh, but it’s not his normal, relaxed chuckle. No, this sounds like he’s forcing the sound through a steel trap. Given how quickly one of the muscles in his jaw is ticking, that’s probably pretty accurate.

  “Stay with me tonight, Joey. Please. I don’t care if we do anything but sleep. Just…stay.”

  Linking our fingers, I lead him to the bed. He’s putty in my hands. So far from the commanding, strong, confident man who left me for his first oversees deployment six months ago. He lets me undress him, staring off into the corner like it holds the answers to the secrets of the universe. When I’m down to my tank and panties and he’s only wearing briefs, we snuggle under the blanket. “You can talk to me, Ford. Whatever it is…I’ll still love you.”

  But he stays silent, and as I drift off to the sleep, I wonder if he’ll ever come back to me.

  The next morning, I open my eyes before the sun comes up. Ford still sleeps soundly, though his face is anything but relaxed. I don’t want to wake him, but I have study group in three hours, and I need a shower and…clothes that don’t make me look like that bar-bunny from last night. Grabbing my skirt, I pad over to his kitchenette counter and find a little notebook and a pen.

  Ford, I love you. I don’t know what happened over there or why you can’t tell me about it. But love requires trust. And hard work. I know you leave this afternoon, but please…think about what I said. We’ll never survive if you can’t let me share your pain. -Joey

  After I slip on my heels and my too-short skirt—I’m going to freeze trying to catch a cab this time of the morning—I escape out the door and head for home.

  “Asshole,” I mutter as the third cab passes me by. I guess my bachelorette party attire doesn’t make for a guaranteed fare. My apartment is only another ten blocks away, but my feet already ache, and my arms are two skinny icicles covered with goosebumps. I turn down an alley as a shortcut, but three steps out onto the next street, a muffled scream and a thump sends fear snaking frigid tendrils around my heart.

  Picking up the pace, I focus on the four lane road only a couple blocks away. Traffic streams by at high speed this time of the morning, and there, I’ll find people.

  “Two-for-one?”

  The raspy voice startles me only a second before a hand claps over my mouth and I’m dragged into the shadows of a large, darkened building. Flailing my legs, I catch a second man in the stomach with the heel of my shoe, and he mutters something in Spanish.

  My screams go nowhere, and once the second man recovers and glances down at his shirt, where I’ve left a rip and a bloody scratch, his dark eyes turn almost black. “You’ll pay for that, bitch.”

  Clawing at the strong arm banded around my waist, I draw more blood. The scents of cigarettes and bad aftershave surround me. The second man pulls a pouch from his back pocket as the first man propels me towards a black van.

  If they get me in there, I’m dead.

  Throwing my head back, I feel a satisfying crunch as I hit the first man’s nose and smell blood. The hand slips from my mouth as he cries out, and I scream with everything in me. But he still has me around the waist, and I can’t escape his hold.

  “She broke my nose!”

  And then I’m flying, my head hitting the van, sending me crumpling to the ground. Get up, Joey. Get up, now.

  When the dark haze clears from my vision, the two of them stand over me. “Wrong place, wrong time, honey.” The flash of a needle paralyzes me for a second too long, and by the time I lurch to my feet, they’re ready for me.

  Broken nose guy grabs my wrist and twists my arm behind my back as he slams me face-first into the side of the van. The prick in my arm barely stings, and I scream for help again, but it’s fainter than I intend.

  Oh God.

  My limbs start to feel heavy, and the men’s hands rove over my body. Slaps to my ass. Rough fingers on my inner thighs. And I can’t fight. My eyelids weigh ten pounds each, and I fight to keep them open.

  But it’s no use. The van door makes an odd metallic screech, and then I land on something soft and lumpy. With a moan, I let my eyes close as I realize what I’m lying on.

  Another unconscious woman.

  Panic seizes my heart in a vise, and I struggle to breathe as the drugs pull me under. I can’t move, can’t scream, and as the van door slams shut and I drift off, I think of Ford, and how I might never see him again.

  The sound of whimpering rouses me enough to force my eyes open—and then wish I hadn’t.

  A harsh light illuminates expanses of skin—white, brown, golden… There have to be at least ten girls in here with me, all dressed in short skirts, strappy tanks, or nothing but bras and panties.

  Oh God.

  Three of them huddle in a corner, holding on to one another. The rest sit alone, some crying, others looking shell-shocked. I push up on an elbow, and then the stench hits me. It smells like the worst public bathroom on the planet in here. Hot, muggy, and still, the air chokes me, and I retch, the space spinning around me until my head hits the floor.

  Trembling fingers touch my arm, and I jerk away.

  “Shhh. I won’t hurt you. I’m Emmie. You’ll be dizzy for a little while,” she whispers. “But try not to throw up. The only place for it is the bucket over there, and they only come to empty it once a day.”

  “Once…a…day?” I don’t understand. Anything. “Where are we? What’s going on?” Each word sends pain pulsing through my skull, and I dig my knuckles into my temples to try to stop the pounding.

  Blinking away the tears gathering in my eyes, I try to focus on Emmie. Greasy brown hair hangs from a haggard face. Dark circles brace her eyes, and her lower lip is swollen and red, like she’s been chewing on it nonstop.

  “They are going to sell us.”

  “No. They can’t…we’re…Americans—”

  Another voice, this one harsh, echoes on the metal walls, “You think that makes a damn bit of difference?”

  “Quiet, Hannah! Or they’ll come,” Emmie hisses at the second girl.

  “Fuck ‘em,” Hannah spits back.

  A loud metal sound shakes the walls, and all of the girls tense, shrinking away as doors open wide at the end of the long, narrow room. More light spills in, and I think I can make out the vaguely corrugated walls of a railcar. Three men fill the opening, one holding a baseball bat, the other with what looks like a gun, but thicker.

  Emmie drags me back against the wall with her. I can’t look away from the center man’s face. His brown eyes hold no warmth, and a long scar bisects his cheek. “New girls, stand up.” Pulling driver’s licenses from his pocket, he says, “Rachel Mendoza and Josephine Taylor.”

  “You have to,” Emmie whispers in my ear. “Or they’ll hurt all of us.”

  I don’t know if my legs will hold me, but I try, crash to my knees, and then finally wobble to standing. Across the railcar, another woman—a girl, really—jerks up with a curse. “You won’t fucking get away with this,” she says in a heavily accented voice.

  The man stalks over to her and backhands her hard enough to send her careening into the wall with a yelp. “You will address me as Jefe. Until you reach the auction, I own you.”

  I’m too terrified to speak, and when he approaches me, I press my back into the wall, staring down at the shiny alligator pattern and metal tips on his shoes. “Pretty little thing. Olde
r, I think. How old are you, chica? Twenty?”

  “Twenty-two,” I whisper.

  He grabs my chin, turning my head this way and that. “Open your mouth.”

  The demand shocks me, and I don’t think before saying, “What?”

  Thick fingers wrap around my throat, cutting off my air, and his dead eyes bore into me. “You get one warning, bitch. Do as you are told, never speak without addressing me properly, and you will not be punished. Otherwise…” He lets the threat hang between us until the edges of my vision darken, and then releases me.

  As I suck in lungfuls of the disgusting, thick air, he repeats his order. “Open your mouth.”

  This time, I obey, and he pulls my jaw down as far as it will go. “Good teeth.” I don’t have time to process why he cares about my teeth before he yanks up my tank and palms one of my breasts, pinching the nipple hard enough to make me cry out. “Perky tits. Small.”

  “Get your hands off me, you bastard!”

  “Estupida, pequeña perra. I was being nice,” he snarls. Wrapping his hand in my long, blond hair, he yanks me forward and drags me to the very center of the railcar. With a kick to the back of my legs, he sends me to my hands and knees. “Do not move.”

  Oh, hell no.

  I’m almost to my feet when he slugs me across the cheek. The impact sends me whirling to my left, and unable to keep my feet under me, I fall to the ground, my head slamming into metal. The coppery taste of blood fills my mouth, and I spit and whimper as his hand tightens on the back of my neck.

  “I would have made your first time private,” he says as he kneels next to me. “But you have earned your first punishment.”